Things That Bang

Cuckoos aren't the only tricksters of nature getting others to take care of their fledglings. The Alcon blue butterfly larvae to get ants to take care of them.

"They mimic the surface chemicals that the ants have on their own brood¿ and we've been able to show that the closer that mimicry, the faster they get picked up by ants and taken back to the ant nest and put amongst their own brood," he told the magazine's podcast.

"Once they are there, they become highly virulent parasites: they eat some of the brood and they will also get fed by the worker ants, and get fed in preference to the ants' own brood."